Hallway painting completed

We’re almost done with the hallway! I’m not sure hallway is the correct term.  It connects the upstairs bedrooms and bathroom to the livingroom with a small hallway and stair, but the space is square.  Not technically a landing because there’s about 5′ of narrow hallway at the top of the stairs and this area is about 10′ across.  Additionally, there’s a linen closest, so in this tiny area are five doors.

Nearly finished painting the hallway and doors

Why’d we put a chair rail in a hallway? Using the chair rail and with darker color on the bottom, makes your eye travel horizontally around the area, so it feels more like a real room and less of a pass through.  The only other alternative is to paint the doors the same color as the walls,  but we prefer using three different colors for more interest.  If only the area was a foot larger, we could be in a half-round console table, but sadly, there isn’t enough clearance to do anything with the exception of a few photos.

We used to have wallpaper that acted as the architectural detail that the wood molding is doing now. I have a picture somewhere of the old hallway – the border was lighthouses, the top sponge panted in sandy beige’s and the bottom sponge painted in blues. Hey, it was the 90’s when I did it and the boys were little, we loved it then, but I like the molding trim better now.

I changed the color of the paint under the chair rail, twice. The original color I chose was Martha Stewart Living Low-VOC paint Sunken Pool(teal) in egg shell (I keep calling it satin, but I mean egg shell).  But for some reason after I painted the bathroom just off the hallway with her Spring Melt, I got the idea that they should match.  That lasted about a day and I realized I really liked the Sunken Pool so I repainted it.  Yes, it’s brighter and the pictures don’t do it justice.  Both colors are paler than the photos show – I love them!

The chair rail has been base coated in Martha Stewart Living Low-VOC paint Tailor’s Chalk white in semi-gloss and installed. We’ve puttied the nail holes and caulked the area between the trim and the wall (and yes, I had a lot of fun with the word caulk 🙂  When we have a moment we’ll sand the wood putty and put the final coat of paint on the trim.  Then one last touch-up on the walls from where we caulked and we’ll be done!

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